One Mind Shift for Self Motivation
How thinking of other helped me
In this Blog by my peer Jennifer Chau, Chau had suggested that helping others is one possible incentive to motivation.
Along with Chau I also saw this idea in Human Motivation and Interpersonal Relationships : Theory, Research, and Applications by Netta Weinstein who argues that our roles relative to others dictate human motivation. (weinstein, 2014)
It makes sense. Humans are social animals and helping other should be part of who we are from an evolutionary perspective.
How I’ll apply this:
For this attempt at bettering self motivation instead of bettering myself be the goal of working I’ll make my goal to help someone else. If i’m helping someone else hopefully my instincts will kick in and I’ll feel more motivated to help.
To set this up I gave myself the task of preparing of just shopping for a friend. (I thought following someone all day asking what they needed was weird)
How it went:
Excellent! I did the shopping but more than that I felt truly motivated to make sure I was able to find exactly what they were looking for. I even spent more than half an hour just for them. Some of the best results so far.
My Thoughts:
This task didn’t seem intuitive. I see myself as a selfish person who can barely do things for themselves. Why would I be much better at doing things for others?
I’m not sure if I just have low standards for myself or if it was having someone else to hold me accountable but I wanted to make sure I did my task right.
I was willing to spend extra time without even thinking about it, something I wasn’t able to do when only thinking of myself.
If I were to do work and not think of just how I would be affected but my team I would imagine I would also produce a strong level of motivation. Given I would need to work around other that I actually like but I see myself using this mindset again.
Weinstein, N. (Ed.). (2014). Human motivation and interpersonal relationships : theory, research, and applications. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com
